Titan DREAMers Resource Center coordinator Martha Zavala Perez, at right, hosts a watch party for Cal State Fullerton students, including DACA-holders, to view the State of the Union address in Fullerton on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday struck some familiar tones for DACA recipient Martha Zavala Perez, who heads a center for undocumented students at Cal State Fullerton.

She’d heard some of it before, in person.

Zavala Perez, 27, was a legislator’s guest in the Congressional gallery two years ago, when the president gave his first speech to Congress, extolled “a new national pride” and said a border wall would soon be under construction.

Titan DREAMers Resource Center coordinator Martha Zavala Perez hosts a watch party for Cal State Fullerton students, including DACA-holders, to view the State of the Union address in Fullerton on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Cal State Fullerton student Miriam Tellez was invited by Rep. Gil Cisneros as his guest to President Trump’s State of the Union address. File photo taken at the Titan Dreamers Resource Center on January 31, 2017. (Photo by Nick Agro, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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Titan DREAMers Resource Center coordinator Martha Zavala Perez hosts a watch party for Cal State Fullerton students, including DACA-holders, to view the State of the Union address in Fullerton on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Cal State Fullerton students, including DACA-holders, watches the State of the Union address at the Titan DREAMers Resource Center on the first floor of the Pollak Library in Fullerton on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Titan DREAMers Resource Center coordinator Martha Zavala Perez hosts a watch party for Cal State Fullerton students, including DACA-holders, to view the State of the Union address in Fullerton on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Cal State Fullerton students, including DACA-holders, watch the State of the Union address in the Titan DREAMers Resource Center in Fullerton on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Cal State Fullerton students, including DACA-holders, watch the State of the Union address in the Titan DREAMers Resource Center in Fullerton on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Titan DREAMers Resource Center coordinator Martha Zavala Perez discusses the State of the Union address after hosting a watch party for Cal State Fullerton students, including DACA-holders, in Fullerton on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Titan DREAMers Resource Center coordinator Martha Zavala Perez snaps a selfie to send to Miriam Tellez, a Cal State Fullerton DACA Student who was a guest of U.S. Representative Gil Cisneros to watch the State of the Union address in person, during a watch party in Fullerton on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Titan DREAMers Resource Center coordinator Martha Zavala Perez hosts a watch party for Cal State Fullerton students, including DACA-holders, to view the State of the Union address in Fullerton on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Titan DREAMers Resource Center coordinator Martha Zavala Perez watches the State of the Union address with Cal State Fullerton students, including DACA-holders, during a watch party in the Resource Center on the first floor of the Pollak Library in Fullerton on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

On Tuesday, Zavala Perez said she heard a similar tone, particularly in Trump phrases like “the tremendous onslaught” of caravans “on the march to the United States” and “countless Americans (who) are murdered by criminal illegal aliens.”

“His constant connection that immigrant means criminal, referring to individuals with the term ‘illegal’ and assuming all undocumented are out to get something or are some sort of problem, it’s disheartening,” she said after the speech.

Like Tellez, Zavala Perez can’t vote. But Zavala Perez said their presence in the imposing and rarified chamber sent a message.

“Sitting there was my resistance. You can say horrible things about me without knowing me, but now you have to face me.”

At least 15 legislators invited DACA recipients, asylum seekers and other immigrants to be their guests at the State of the Union. The guests included women who had been separated from their children as part the president’s zero tolerance policy.

Zavala Perez arrived in the United States when she was about a year old. Her parents didn’t tell her about her illegal immigration status until she was ready to apply for college. She was the first in her family to attend a university, graduating from CSU Channel Islands with a degree in communications before getting a Master’s degree at Pepperdine University.

Applying for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program made a huge difference, she said. The new status included a work permit, which allowed her to work as an adjunct professor. In 2016, there was a delay in her renewal and she temporarily lost her work permit.

“I went from being a college professor one day to washing dishes in the back of a kitchen another day,” Zavala Perez said.

“That was a big moment. It didn’t matter how many degrees I got. To the government, I wouldn’t be an equal. I wasn’t American enough.”

That’s when she said she developed a passion for helping out students in a similar position, eventually leading to her role as coordinator of the Cal State Fullerton Titan Dreamers Resource Center. The center serves about 1,000 DACA recipients but was visited by as many as 2,000 students last fall, according to a university spokeswoman.

Zavala Perez said she wasn’t surprised by what she described as the president’s demonizing of immigrants.

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